Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of stroke on brain activation during reaching and gripping. New technologies such as Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) are ideal for rehabilitation as they can measure brain activation without constraining the participant's posture or movement. Methods: 11 healthy and 11 chronic post-stroke individuals completed reaching and gripping tasks using their stronger, weaker, and both arms simultaneously. Performance was recorded and brain activations were collected using NIRS. Change in brain activation was compared between groups and arm used for each side of the brain and relationships between performance and brain activation were assessed for each condition, group, and side of the brain. Results: Significant differences in brain activation were calculated in the right/affected brain side during reaching. Larger activations were found for the stroke compared to control group when using the weaker and both arms simultaneously despite poorer performance for the stroke group. Significant relationships were observed between gripping performance and brain activation for the stroke group only. Conclusions: Stroke leads to significantly larger brain activation during functional reaching involving the weaker arm despite poorer performance, which may indicate increases in effort or brain output after stroke. NIRS detected changes in brain activation due to stroke and current results support further research for this tool in measuring brain plasticity with rehabilitation.